2023 Lawrence C. Nussdorf Student Awardees Announced

Penn IUR is pleased to announce the 2023 winners of the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Student Award: Luke Campo, Adam Goudjil, and Victoria Sousa. The award, named in honor of the late Lawrence C. Nussdorf, an early champion of Penn IUR and a founding Board member, recognizes students who have demonstrated an interest in urban issues through involvement in the Fellows in Urban Leadership (FUL) program or the Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium (UURC) and who wish to continue pursuing urban scholarship. The awardees were recognized at the April 2023 Penn IUR Urban Leadership Forum. 

“We’re very proud to be able to support these students in their development as urban leaders,” said Penn IUR Co-Director Susan Wachter. “The remarkable work they’ve accomplished as undergraduates demonstrates their future great promise.”

The 2023 Lawrence C. Nussdorf Student Awardees

• Luke Campo is a current Penn IUR Fellow in Urban Leadership and student in the Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium. A junior majoring in International Relations and minoring in Environmental Studies, his interests lie in the development of sustainable infrastructure in developing countries. He is currently working on a Penn IUR Policy Brief with Co-Director Eugenie Birch focused on the need for investments in renewable energy, water, and biosecurity infrastructure in the Galápagos. Luke is a board member of the Wharton Future of Cities Conference and worked for Fifth Wall’s Climate Technology fund this past summer.
• Adam Goudjil is a junior from Staten Island, N.Y. majoring in Urban Studies and minoring in Urban Education Policy. As a member of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships’ Student Advisory Board, he has supported capacity-building efforts to expand ABCS courses. He participated in Penn IUR’s Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium, where he researched the impact philanthropies have on revitalizing small legacy cities. This summer, he was a research intern at the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits & Philanthropy. 
• Victoria “Tori” Sousa is a graduating senior studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, with a concentration in public policy and governance. She is a current Penn IUR Fellow in Urban Leadership and student in the Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium (UURC.) As a part of UURC, Victoria worked with Amber Mackey, Ph.D. Student in American Politics, to contribute to her research focused on changes in legislative attention to race over time in Michigan’s state legislature. Her interests focus on the intersection between journalism and education policy. She served as news editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian, and in the summer of 2022, she represented Penn’s Center for Latin America and the Caribbean as a student reporting fellow for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, for which she received a grant to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to report on the impact of COVID-19 on education systems in the region; her reporting was later published in POLITICO magazine. She has previously interned for Philadelphia magazine and Boston magazine.

“We were able to establish this award in recognition of Larry’s leadership with the generosity of the Nussdorf family,” Penn IUR Co-Director Eugénie Birch, referring to the award’s namesake. “These students exemplify the dedication and passion for which Larry was famous. I think he would be very happy to know that his inspiration and generosity are supporting these students.”

The Lawrence C. Nussdorf Student Award is one part of the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Urban Leadership Program, which also supports the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Urban Leadership Prize (an expansion of the award formerly known as the Penn IUR Urban Leadership Award).